An armchair ride in the office

Employees work at an assembly plant of Foshan Hong Qiao Furniture, one of China's largest office chair producers. Photos Provided to China Daily

Oblivious to the downturn, at least one company is sitting back and enjoying life

China has been going through its coldest winter in nearly 30 years, and many furniture makers, going through a chilly period of their own, may have been consoled in that at least they are not alone. And then there is Foshan Hong Qiao Furniture, a company whose name means rainbow, and whose summers never seem to end.

Last year, Hong Qiao's business grew 20 percent - following several years of growth - and it forecasts that in the coming two or three years its revenue may double or even triple.

"At the moment our focus is on office chairs, but we have started to produce other kinds of office furniture," says Zuo Boliang, the company's general manager.

"If only 30 percent of our chair buyers purchase other office furniture such as tables, sofas and bookshelves, our trade will double or triple.

"It's already a conservative estimate because based on our experience, a chair is only 10 percent of the office furniture."

Thirteen years ago Zuo Boliang and his elder brother Zuo Boyang set up a company making office chairs called Jinxing (meaning golden star) but found the name had been registered, so they changed it to Hong Qiao.

With years of experience in making chairs and interior decoration, they invested 60,000 yuan (7,200 euros, $9,640) in a 300-square-meter workshop and started with three other workers to make their first chairs.

In the first few years revenue doubled, tripled or grew even faster because "there were many opportunities, and any kind of product was welcome in the market", Zuo Boliang says, sitting in his modern office of more than 60 sq meters on the seventh floor of the headquarters of Hong Qiao Furniture. The office has a door that is activated by remote control, and there is a toilet attached. The building contains exhibition rooms on three floors covering 8,000 sq meters.

Growth was so explosive in the first year or so that in 2001 the workshop was expanded to become a 3,000-sq meter factory, four years later that expanded to 50,000 sq meters, and last year it grew further, to 60,000 sq meters.

But for Zuo, 38, that is still not enough. He complains that the size of the factory, which produces 4,000 chairs a day, limits the company's development because it is now producing more office furniture other than chairs.

"I really hope that the government will give us preferable policy when we renovate our old factory," he says.

Hong Qiao office chairs, mainly aimed at middle and high-end markets, are sold at home and abroad.

The chairs first went onto the overseas market in 2001, mainly in Southeast Asia, the Middle East and India and later in Europe and the US. After the company had a stall at the Canton Trade Fair three years later its exports started to surge.

"Before that we had no export department and no translators," Zuo says.

Today half the company's products are exported to markets including Europe, North America, the Middle East, Southeast Asia, South Asia and Africa, and it seems that not even the global financial crisis has managed to dent business.

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